As means for distributing and recording information to be set for a device, such as a copying machine, connected to a network, there have been push-type and pull-type means when such means are roughly classified. As an embodiment of the push-type means, there has been used means for uploading configuration information for some device which has been downloaded to a computer via a WWW browser or the like or configuration information created on a computer to the device.
Especially, there have been constructed such large-scaled network systems as include multiple LAN groups. As means for managing devices on a network in such a large-scaled network system, there is known a technique for sending configuration information to a device on the network from an external device (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-303931, for example).
There is also used such means as enables a device to acquire configuration information set for another device connected to a network, not via a computer but directly via the network (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-175272, for example).
There is also a technique in which a device determines whether there remains any job and, if there remains any job, the device does not change configuration information (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 09-134264, for example). The device of Patent Document 3 is adapted not to change an encoding key and a decoding key if there remains another print job when receiving and processing an encoded print job.
In conventional push-type embodiments as described above, there is fear that, when an external device such as a computer and other devices sends configuration information, various problems may be caused in a device to receive the configuration information depending on the condition of the device. Assume that a user selects a destination facsimile number set in a device with one-touch operation or from an address book and executes a job to perform facsimile transmission with the number as a destination and that, during execution of the job, the device receives and records new configuration information from an external device, for example. In this case, there is a problem that the facsimile number corresponding to a button “Destination 1” may be changed to another facsimile number during execution of the job, and thereby the facsimile transmission job may be executed with the use of a facsimile number of a destination different from the destination selected before receiving the configuration information.
Next, assume that count management of a device is performed based on an ID and a password. If the ID and the password of the destination of a job is deleted or changed during execution of the job, the job may abnormally operate, or counting is performed with wrong counter information.
Especially when it is set that device configuration information is automatically distributed and recorded by a system administrator at a fixed time every day, rewriting of configuration information is frequently performed without users being involved. Accordingly, in such a system, there is a higher possibility that rewriting of configuration information which is not expected by a user may be caused in a device.
As described in “the background of the invention”, it is possible to prevent configuration information from being changed when there is any job. In this case, however, it is inconvenient (1) that there is no means for confirming that the configuration information has not been correctly updated, (2) that an external device, the sending side of configuration information, cannot confirm that the configuration information has not been rewritten in a device which is the receiving side of the configuration information, and (3) that the configuration information is not changed only because there remains a job when new configuration information is received, even though the job may be terminated after a predetermined time.